(By Aryavart International University, India)
Dr Prabin Sinha
Vol. 3, Jan-Jun 2017
Abstract:
Edward Said considers all writings in the diverse fields of history, fiction, sociology, anthropology and political theory under the rubric of Orientalism. He considers Orientalism as a discourse in the Foucauldian mould and says that without considering Orientalism as a discourse, it would be impossible to understand the systematic way in which Europe managed its “other”, that is the Orient. He quotes extensively from literature, history and sociology to establish that the West created the Orient according to certain rules characteristic to Orientalism. Said says that all the writers, thinkers and philosophers who wrote about the Orient, wrote with the basic assumptions that there was an Orient which was different from Europe and Said finds this notion ubiquitous in all Western thoughts.